Baffled and beaten back she works on still, Weary and sick of soul she works the more, Sustained by her indomitable will: The hands shall fashion and the brain shall porc, But as if blacker night could dawn on night, The sense that every struggle brings defeat Because they have no secret to express; That none can pierce the vast black veil uncerta a Titanic from her high throne in the north, In bronze sublimity she gazes forth Over her Capital of teen and threne, Over the river with its isles and bridges, The marsh and moorland, to the stern rock-ridges, The moving moon and stars from east to west Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest. The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance, ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY. [ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY was born on the 14th of March, 1844. He was an ichthyologist by profession, and his entire life, from boyhood to the day of his death, was passed in the service of the British Museum. He died, after a very short illness, from the effects of a neglected cold, on the 30th of January, 1881. He published during his time three volumes of verse, An Epic of Women, 1870; Lays of France, 1872; Music and Moonlight, 1874. His posthumous volume, Songs of a Worker, appeared in 1881.] The same month that saw O'Shaughnessy's death deprived English literature of one of its most vigorous representatives, a woman who had no less ambition than he had to excel in verse. In the chorus of praise and regret which followed George Eliot to the grave, O'Shaughnessy passed away almost unperceived. As far as intellect is concerned he had no claim to be mentioned near her. But in poetry the battle is not always to the strong, and he seems to have possessed, what we all confess that she lacked, the indescribable quality which gives the smallest warbler admission to that forked hill from which Bacon and Hobbes are excluded. In O'Shaughnessy this quality was thin, and soon exhausted. His earliest book had most of it; his posthumous book, which ought never to have been published, had none of it. It was volatile, and evaporated with the passage of youth. But when his work has been thoroughly sifted, there will be found to remain a small residuum of exquisite poetry, full of odour and melody, all in one key, and essentially unlike the verse of anyone else. I have ventured to indicate as the central feature of this poetry its habit of etherealising human feeling, and of looking upon mundane emotion as the broken echo of a subtle and supernatural passion. This is what seems to make O'Shaughnessy's best pieces, such as The Fountain of Tears, Barcarolle, There is an Earthly Glimmer in the Tomb, Song of Betrothal, Outcry, and even, as the reverse of the medal, the were-wolf ballad of Bisclaveret, so delicate and unique. We have nothing else quite like them in English; the Germans had a kindred product in the songs of Novalis. EDMUND W. GOSSE FROM BISCLAVERET.' [Epic of Women.] Now over intervening waste Of lowland drear, and barren wold, I scour, and ne'er assuage my haste, Inflamed with yearnings manifold ; Drinking a distant sound that seems And bitter stifling scents are past And lo, afar, the gradual stir, And rising of the stray wild leaves; The swaying pine, and shivering fir, And windy sound that moans and heaves In first fits, till with utter throes And mountains near and mountains far Of storms, when shore cries unto shore. But soon, from every hidden lair Wild coverts, or in deserts bare, Behold they come, -renewed and quick The splendid fearful herds that stray SONG. [From Lays of France.] Has summer come without the rose, Is the blue changed above thee, O world? or am I blind? Will you change every flower that grows, The skies seemed true above thee; The rose true on the tree; The bird seemed true the summer through; But all proved false to me: World, is there one good thing in you Life, love, or death-or what? Since lips that sang I love thee I think the sun's kiss will scarce fall I think the bird will miss me, Be false or fair above me; You cannot change one place The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew,— The grave I make the spot, Here where she used to love me, SONG. [From Music and Moonlight.] I made another garden, yea, I left the dead rose where it lay, Why did the summer not begin? She entered with her weary smile, She looked around a little while, Her passing touch was death to all, Her pale robe, clinging to the grass Seemed like a snake That bit the grass and ground, alas! She went up slowly to the gate; She turned back at the last to wait, |